


The Wilderness Club, Memes, and Other Things Archival Assistants Should Not Be Doing On The Clock

by advanced_fanatic



Series: Bungou Stray Archives [10]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone Needs Therapy, Gen, Jealousy, Memes, Nakajima Atsushi Needs a Hug (Bungou Stray Dogs), Poor Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Sad Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Tachihara Michizou's Brother Lives (Bungou Stray Dogs), atsushi likes it when dazai texts him, atsushi's terrible terrible self esteem, dazai also likes memes, dazai please please stop pushing the people you care about away, idiot, king of not noticing shit, kyouka's self esteem is just as awful but she's a lot more healthy about it, literally EVERY character needs it, oblivious tachihara, so does Tachihara, stranger says "don't look here!", tachihara likes memes, tachihara says "cool king i didn't have anything i wanted to see over there anyway", tachihara's two brain cells are very very overworked in this, the stranger loves him because he literally Does Not give a fuck, we love him anyway though, why isn't that a common tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26380252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advanced_fanatic/pseuds/advanced_fanatic
Summary: Still reeling from his encounter with the Toy Soldier, Tachihara seeks out Atsushi and Kyouka, who take him to see Lucy.It's a pity he didn't see who else had tagged along, too.
Relationships: Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Izumi Kyouka & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Lucy Maud Montgomery (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Izumi Kyouka & Lucy Maud Montgomery & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Izumi Kyouka & Lucy Maud Montgomery (Bungou Stray Dogs), Izumi Kyouka & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Kunikida Doppo & Tachihara Michizou (Bungou Stray Dogs), Lucy Maud Montgomery & Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Nakajima Atsushi & Tachihara Michizou (Bungou Stray Dogs), Tachihara Michizou & Tachihara Michizou's Brother (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Series: Bungou Stray Archives [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740364
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The Wilderness Club, Memes, and Other Things Archival Assistants Should Not Be Doing On The Clock

“And anyway, that’s what I learned about the Unknowing,” Tachihara finished, pacing in front of the Archivist’s desk.

“Statement ends. Thank you,” Kunikida said, flicking off the tape recorder as Tachihara collapsed into the chair.

“This  _ sucks _ !” he said. “Seriously, fuck my  _ entire _ life! First, the Stranger skins my brother, and then they fucking--dress up as my boss and stalk me for like three weeks, and now they’re trying to  _ end the goddamn world _ ? Ugh! I need a vacation!”

“You know the Archives policy. Take one as long as you want, and you’ll get paid, as long as you fill out the necessary paperwork.” The Archivist massaged his face, and Tachihara groaned again.

“I  _ know _ , but...it’s my  _ brother _ .”

“Your--” The Archivist cut himself off, clearly searching for a non-question way to politely phrase this. “If it isn’t too much trouble, I would appreciate an explanation of why your situation with your brother prevents you from going on vacation.”

“I want to avenge him, and it’s not like I can kill Yosano Akiko, so I might as well go for the next best option,” Tachihara said.

“Why--I would like to know why you want to kill Yosano,” said the Archivist, and Tachihara puffed out his cheeks and blew responding.

“She was the reason he went into the opera house that day. She had something to do with his Army squadron, and he took her out for the day and they went in there. I followed. The clowns took him, and they left her. It’s  _ her _ fault that he died!”

“She was nine years old, Tachihara,” Kunikida said.

“And I was seven. And Kage was eighteen. Your point?”

“She was a victim too,” he said. “I know you’re angry and grieving, but it wasn’t her fault. She was a kid, too.”

“She was in a  _ war _ ,” Tachihara said. “I think that makes her not a kid anymore.”

“Or it makes her a kid in a bad situation, who’s been affected by in and who’s grieving, too,” Kunikida said.

“I highly doubt that she was grieving,” Tachihara said. “He was  _ my _ brother.”

“And she’s  _ my _ sister, or close enough,” Kunikida replied. “I chose my Assistants with  _ her _ guidance.”

Tachihara stared at him. “Wait, you’re saying  _ Yosano Akiko _ got me this job? With the best benefits, the highest salary, the best job security, and the best vacation time in the entire Institute? Why?”

“We all knew you wanted to be an Assistant,” Kunikida said. “It was exceedingly obvious to literally everyone in the Archives. The only reason you weren’t made one before was that Shachou didn’t trust you around Yosano, after you tried to kill her three days after you were hired on as a researcher. I hired you on her recommendation, and so far you’ve exceeded all of my expectations.”

“I...oh. Wow. Um.” Tachihara blinked for a moment. He had not expected any of that. “Still. I need to stop the Circus. I can take my vacation time after that.”

“Alright,” said the Archivist. “Just...please at least try to forgive Yosano. Your brother’s death wasn’t her fault.”

“Yeah, sure,” muttered Tachihara, getting up and walking out. He could see Atsushi and Kyouka at their own desks. Kyouka was typing up a Statement follow-up, while Atsushi texted in his lap. Tachihara made a beeline for him.

“Distract me,” he said.

“Why?” Atsushi asked. “Did something happen?”

“I gave a Statement about the Unknowing and also encountered something wearing my brother’s skin, before discovering that I was hired, not on my own merit, but on the recommendation of the woman I’ve been trying to kill for the last eight years. So yeah. A lot of stuff happened.” Tachihara pressed his face into the desk and groaned. “A  _ lot _ .  _ So _ much, Atsushi, so please, if you have any mercy for your favorite coworker at all…”

“Kyouka’s my favorite coworker, actually,” Atsushi said, “but Dazai has rediscovered memes and has been sending them to me all day, if you want to see?”

“I didn’t realize Distortions were capable of texting,” Tachihara said, leaning over to see the memes that Atsushi flicked through for him.

“Actually we got him out of the Distortion, last weekend,” Atsushi said. “That’s why Kunikida’s office was covered in blood, and also the floor and the couch, and it’s why Lucy wasn’t at the Circus when you broke in. The initial plan was to just have a really long wilderness club meeting, but then we got attacked by a bunch of Hunt avatars, and then we got hired to find Dazai, although Sakaguchi dumped the lot of us in the Lonely instead of paying, and when we found Dazai, turns out Kunikida had been working his Archivist magic, and he and the Distortion had separated. He’s...in pretty bad shape, but at least he’s alive. At least he can usually recognize me.”

“Damn. You’re lucky. I hope he’s recovering,” Tachihara said, wishing that his brother had been able to escape like that.

“So do I,” said Atsushi. “It’s hard to tell, with Dazai. He joked around a lot, before, and he’s trying to now, but he just...he genuinely  _ can’t _ keep track of a conversation anymore, and knowing Dazai, once he realizes that, or if he already has, he’s just going to ham it up for laughs and he won’t let  _ any _ of us close enough to help him, except  _ maybe _ Oda, because Oda always was his favorite anyway, and I know I shouldn’t be jealous of him because I was  _ awful _ to him for no good reason and Dazai saw that so of  _ course _ he likes Oda better than me, but also Oda’s busy with his kids, since they reunited and everything, and they’re keeping an eye out for Sakaguchi since apparently he’s still sulking in the Lonely for whatever reason, and so of course he’s stretched thin, and Dazai needs  _ help _ but he isn’t letting me help him, and that doesn’t change whether or  _ not _ he recognizes me, and he and Oda banded together to make Kyouka and I leave and come into work today, even though when  _ he _ was an Archival Assistant,  _ he _ never did work if something was going on, and--but he has his  _ other _ siblings, now, his  _ original _ ones, so no kidding he likes them better, I would too if I were him, because they came first and they aren’t a burden like I am, and did you know he only took me in because I’m a Hunt avatar and he thought it would be interesting, I heard him talking to Oda about it the day after they got me, and he was saying why they should keep me, he said it would be interesting to watch a Hunt avatar grow up, but they’re Hunt avatars too, and of course he likes them better, so of course he wants them not me and I just--I just want to  _ help _ him.” Atsushi ran his hands through his hair, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry. You have your own problems, and I’m just...honestly, this probably sounds like an  _ amazing _ problem to have, compared to yours.”

Tachihara shrugged. “I asked for a distraction, and honestly, other people’s problems make great distractions. Anyway, I get the jealousy thing. My brother loved someone else more than he loved me, too.”

“Really?” Atsushi asked.

“Yeah. There was this girl, a couple years older than me. Yosano Akiko. My brother was in the Army, and she was too, even though she was only nine, and it wasn’t fair, that she was allowed to go with him and I wasn’t. And he never let me come with him, either, unless we were doing something far away from his army and group. And he would always take her out to do special things, too, even though he saw her  _ all the time _ with his army job. One day he took her to the Royal Opera House. I was jealous, and I decided to follow them, and...he died, and she didn’t. The lead clown laughed, and said that he’d make a good toy soldier, if he wanted to protect us that badly, and then she--she took off his  _ skin _ , and, and then sent Yosano flying when he--he kept  _ moving _ . And then...well, I don’t really know what happened, but the opera house was empty again and Yosano got up and she ran away, and next I heard she was an Archival Assistant, when I started looking into what did  _ that _ to my brother.”

Atsushi frowned. “Did you say  _ toy soldier _ ?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Ok, so you remember when we first met, back when I worked in Artifact Storage, and you found out that I’m a Hunt avatar, and so you asked me to help you get some of your own back against the Stranger, so I took you to egg my friend Lucy’s car?”

“Yeah. Fun, although not so much getting my own back against the Circus,” Tachihara said. “It was nice imagining that the car belonged to the clown who killed my brother, though.”

“That’s the thing-- _ it actually might have _ ,” said Atsushi. “Lucy, she’s the one in charge of the Circus, like, the lead Stranger avatar. That car, she calls it Anne’s Room, it’s her pride and joy. But I digress. About thirteen or fourteen years ago, she started on a new pet project, called the Toy Soldier. And, Tachihara, get this-- _ she picked it out from the Royal Opera House as a former Slaughter-marked human _ . And, and Yosano, when she was little, she was held captive by the Slaughter, and got free,  _ fourteen years ago _ . When she became a full avatar, after an incident involving Lucy where she broke her neck when Lucy acquired the man she would make into the Toy Soldier. And, and last weekend, when I got out of the Lonely, Lucy called me, and she was freaking the  _ fuck _ out because you’d gotten in to the circus and shredded her Toy Soldier’s skin--the skin that it  _ came with _ , from back when it was human, and Tachihara, you said you only destroyed one skin when you were there, right, your--”

“My brother’s skin,” Tachihara echoed, his voice soft and furious. “Oh my God. Oh my  _ God _ , she fucking--that was--but it was just sawdust underneath--but no, it had a sword, it raised it--but it’s grip was  _ awful _ , like, seriously, Atsushi, he raised it like he wanted to scare me, but I could tell it didn’t want to hurt me, that’s why, oh my God, oh,  _ fuck _ ,  _ Kage _ !” He buried his face in his hands. “My brother, that was my  _ fucking _ brother, do you think he recognized me?”

“I don’t know,” Atsushi said. “Lucy was more upset about having to repair the skin than anything else, but you can’t really tell--it’s a point of pride, in the Circus, that your project doesn’t remember who they were before. Lucy has said multiple times that she thinks that’s bullshit, mainly because she loves Anne’s Room too much to ever let it go like that. It was her car, you know, back before she was made into a Stranger avatar. She thinks connections to your past are important, but that you just have to work to hold onto them. She thinks it makes you a stronger avatar, and since the Toy Soldier--your brother, sorry, since your brother didn’t have anything physical to attach to like Lucy did her car, that makes his skin really the only thing that can connect him to who he used to be, see? And so she was planning on keeping it on him until he had solidified himself--as much as any Stranger avatar can, really--and then loosing him onto the world. Lucy said the first thing  _ she _ did was track down her sibling and then their kids and stuff. I guess maybe she expects him to do the same? I don’t know. She wanted to finish him up before the Unknowing, or at least she said she did, so that she’d have a friend if none of us in wilderness club survived in any recognizable state.”

Tachihara scowled. “That’s not how you make friends.”

“It is in the Circus,” Atsushi said. “In the Circus--if you’re as powerful as Lucy, at any rate--you literally  _ make friends _ .”

“There’s a clear power imbalance there,” Tachihara said.

“Yeah, it drives Lucy mad,” said Atsushi. “She says he’s the only member of the Circus with the potential to be something more, and he’s just...not. She spent fourteen years trying to make him so that he could have some sort of will of his own...as much as any avatar of the Stranger can anyway, although at least they aren’t as awful as the Web, and from what I’ve gathered, he’s been using it to not do that. It’s been driving her mad.”

“She deserves it,” Tachihara grumbled. “Seriously, she took his free will and is complaining now that it’s gone? That’s not cool! It wasn’t cool of her to...to do  _ that _ to him! He was my brother!”

“Do you want to fight her?” asked Atsushi.

“I want to light her on fucking  _ fire _ ,” grumbled Tachihara.

“Alright. After work today we can go do that,” Atsushi said.

“I thought she was your friend,” Tachihara said.

“She is,” said Atsushi. “Really, what’s a little attemped murder among friends? If you want, I can ask her to wear her favorite skin. Then she’ll be  _ really _ mad when you burn it.”

Tachihara grinned viciously, and then a thought--a rare thing, for him, but valued when it came--appeared in his head, lending some small proof to the theory of spontaneous generation. “Wait, but what if she takes it out on Kage? You said that he has no will of his own.”

“Lucy thinks that he’s using his will to convince everyone including himself that he has no will of his own,” Atsushi corrected. “She says it’s malicious compliance, if he had a malicious bone in his body. Direct quote, by the way. If you asked me, I’d say she does actually, genuinely care for him.”

“Well, I hope she actually, genuinely cares for  _ my fist  _ in  _ her face _ !” yelled Tachihara.

Kyouka shushed him, glaring as if she were about to pull out a knife. Tachihara remembered what Atsushi had said earlier about Dazai sending them away and decided that she probably  _ was _ about to pull out a knife and he really should  _ not _ be getting involved.

“You’d just end up hurting your hand,” said Atsushi. “She’s made of plastic, you know.”

“I did not know,” said Tachihara. “Huh.  _ Plastic _ .”

After work, Tachihara waited by the road with both Atsushi and Kyouka. Atsushi was texting Dazai again with impossible fervor, even though Tachihara knew from looking over his shoulder that Dazai was just testing out the Arabic keyboard. He wasn’t sure whether or not Dazai could speak the language and honestly didn’t want to find out.

“Atsushi’s right, you know,” Kyouka said.

Tachihara looked at her. “About what?”

“Dazai only ever took us in because of what we are, not who. He...I don’t think it’s that he never cared, because if that were true he wouldn’t have kept in contact with us as the Distortion and everything, but it’s obvious that he always liked Oda and Sakaguchi and all they came with better. Atsushi didn’t realize who the five Hunt avatars we were going after Dazai with were, until he got to Moorland House, but I knew. It was why I was trying to kill them. I knew. And I knew Dazai would like them better. You were your brother’s first, so obviously he’s going to like you better. I think with Yosano it was just like Dazai was with us. They were trapped in a situation together and he was trying to do right by her without endangering you. And now we’re going to help you get him back.”

Tachihara sighed. “Thanks. And...I’m sorry about Dazai.”

Kyouka shrugged. “We both knew it would happen someday. The only time either of us have been someone’s first choice it was to each other.”

A van painted orange and hot pink and red pulled up, and Lucy Maud Montegomery poked her head out the window.

“Get in, losers, we’re going fighting,” she said. “Sup, Tachihara, your brother is a  _ fucking _ idiot.”

Tachihara let out a scream of rage and hurled himself through her window, doing his best to throttle her.

Forty five minutes and three tickets later (apparently it was illegal to drive with someone hanging out of the window, attempting to murder a mannequin, not that any of them let that stop them) the five of them tumbled out into a field. Tachihara glared at Lucy, who rolled her eyes, pulling out a tube of nail polish and touching up where her paint had flaked off.

“Seriously, I don’t know why you’re so butthurt about it,” she said. “The Slaughter was going to get him anyway, if I hadn’t stepped in. Look, at least he’s alive, right?”

“For whatever sense of the word,” Tachihara grumbled.

“Ok, fair, he is  _ technically _ made of wood right now, but seriously, it’s just a building material and it’s not like he’s  _ dead _ or anything.” Lucy rolled her eyes. “Look, if you want him to remember you, just go for it! I will literally  _ let you into the Circus _ , dude,  _ just _ say the word. I have pretty much accepted the fact that he is so dense that the only possible way I could ever get through to him is wait, like, a couple decades or enlist help, and despite my best efforts, he hasn’t sought out Yosano yet.”

“You tried to get him to talk to  _ Yosano _ before  _ me _ ?!” Tachihara yelled. “I’m his fucking  _ brother _ !”

“Exactly. He and Yosano have never met before, and she knows everything about everyone. The perfect choice, since there’s no prior emotions there to muddle things up. If that didn’t work,  _ then _ I would have enlisted you, except he’s apparently devoted his life to driving me fucking  _ insane _ , because he  _ will not go seek her out _ . No, he’s just fucking  _ sitting there _ , reading  _ poetry _ and  _ decorating his skin _ .”

“He’s always liked poetry,” Tachihara said, feeling relieved that this, at least, was unchanged. “Bring him ‘Midwinter Memento’, he always liked it before. You can give him other poems from that poet, too.”

“You think that’ll help him grow a pair?” asked Lucy skeptically. “I mean, come  _ on _ . It’s poetry, it’s so stupid!”

“Poetry isn’t stupid! Maybe if you had anything in your head other than  _ plastic _ , you’d be able to realize that!”

“Actually Lucy is the smartest member of wilderness club,” said Atsushi.

“Compared to you, that’s not saying a lot,” Tachihara shot back.

“You’re one to talk,” Atsushi muttered.

“I’m sorry, did the Eye not give you the IQ boost you hoped for?”

Atsushi flushed. “I-I--well, at least my brother’s alive!”

“At least my brother  _ loves me _ !” Tachihara paused. “And he is too alive, Lucy said so.”

Atsushi’s face turned bright red and tears sprouted in his eyes. Tachihara considered the fact that he may have gone too far. Then Akutagawa Ryuunosuke punched him in the face and he stopped considering anything other than the different ways he might get worker’s comp for this.

“Akutagawa, stop!” shouted Atsushi. “He’s human, you idiot!” Akutagawa was forcibly yanked off of Tachihara, who sat up and wiped the blood off of his face and watched as Atsushi and Akutagawa wrestled for a few minutes. 

“Tachihara,” said Lucy, “is there anyone I need to kill?”

“What?” he asked.

“From what you said and Atsushi’s reaction, it  _ sounds _ like I might need to kick Dazai Osamu’s ass. Can you tell me what happened there?” The threat was clear in her voice.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think Dazai kicked Atsushi and Kyouka out after his original siblings showed up,” Tachihara said. “Neither of them said much, but…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kyouka said sharply. “We both knew it would happen. Right now, we’re just trying to accept it and move on and be in his life in the capacity he’ll allow us to be, and we’ll be fine with it. Lucy, you and Akutagawa have no need to get involved.”

“You're our friends, dumbass. You know I’ll kill anyone who hurts you.” Lucy sat down next to Kyouka, her plastic joints cracking. “It feels like everything is changing, so fast.”

Kyouka nodded. “Hopefully things will change for the better,” she said.

“What, in  _ our _ life?” Lucy said. “Please. The most mine has ever changed for the better was meeting Atsushi all those years ago. I’m sure Akutagawa would say the same. No, things are going downhill, and they’re going downhill fast. I’m just hoping that I can get the Toy Soldier functional before everything crashes and burns.”

“You mean my  _ brother _ , Kage?” Tachihara said.

“Hate to break it to you, wise one, but he’s no more Kage than I’m Anne. People change, especially when they stop being people. Right now, he’s the Toy Soldier, and honestly even calling him a ‘he’ is a stretch.”

“Well, what  _ other _ pronoun would you use for him?” Tachihara asked.

“It. In the Circus, it’s dangerous to have too much of an identity, gender identity included. I’m only a she out here, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t have a wilderness club--even if it’s fucking followed me here a few times, it’s never actually gotten involved.”

Tachihara shot into a sitting position and looked around. “Is he here now?” he asked, looking around wildly.

“Bitch please, do you really think I’d say all  _ that _ where he can hear me?” asked Lucy, smirking up at the trees. “It would shatter his faith in the Circus  _ totally _ ...not that the Circus deserves anyone’s faith, but, you know, it’s the principle of the thing. Show any doubt and they tear you to pieces... _ I’ve _ gotten to be quite the good actress over the years, but I don’t think he could handle it, not without knowing the truth.”

“Hey, fuck you,” said Tachihara. “My brother can do  _ anything _ .”

“Yeah?” said Lucy.

“ _ Yeah _ .”

“Well,” she said, “with faith like that, there’s no way he can’t.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching Atsushi and Akutagawa do their level best to pound each other into the dirt before Tachihara spoke again.

“You were like him once, weren’t you?” he said. “That’s why you said meeting Atsushi was the best thing that happened to you, because it broke you away from that.”

Lucy smiled a little. It was soft, and it was facing up at the trees, not at Tachihara. It wasn’t something that he’d seen on her face before, and he wondered if she was looking at something--but no. The trees up there were totally and completely normal, and there was no reason for him to look up.

“You’re right,” she said. “I was. Although I will correct you on one thing--I didn’t start circumventing the Circus when I met him. I did that ever since I was able to go out on my own, to collect people for our shows. It’s part of why I was able to claw myself up so fast--they pride themselves on being outside of the box, and yet they don’t bother to look inside at all. I was able to learn about both sides and therefore become more powerful. Use the box to become more Strange. But, yes. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Anne, and she was plucked up to become one of the Circus. Nothing so fancy as what happened to your brother, of course--I had to  _ work _ for him. Anne and her car were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.”

“How long did it take you to get a will?” asked Tachihara.

“Oh, years and years,” Lucy replied. “Not until the 80s, at the very least. I’m hoping the Toy Soldier can get one sooner, though. The Circus is much more fun when everyone isn’t just moving along at the directive of the figurehead--which is me, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, not at all,” said Kyouka. She rolled her eyes, also at the tree line. It almost made Tachihara wonder--but of course there was nothing up there. “Lucy, you’re terrible and have never once grasped the concept of subtlety.”

“ _ Fuck _ you, I’ve tried subtlety for  _ three fucking years _ !” Lucy shrieked, and she and Kyouka started physically fighting.

“Woah, what the fuck?!” Tachihara exclaimed. “Where the fuck did  _ that _ come from?!”

“Wilderness club!” shouted Lucy as Kyouka’s knife buried itself in her side. “We do this for fun all the time and I can and will separate the head of anyone who interrupts us from their body!”

“Dramatic ass bitch,” Tachihara groaned, falling backwards. There was something that kept drawing his focus away from a certain branch on a certain tree above him. That was weird. He didn’t really care, though, so he let his eyes drift away. Probably Lucy couldn’t completely control her Stranger powers while she and Kyouka tussled. He decided not to think about it. (Not that not thinking about things was hard for him or anything. He probably would have not thought about it anyway, but like all humans wrapped up with the Entities, he enjoyed the illusion of agency.)

Lucy drove them all back to their houses after the non-plastic members of wilderness club tired out. Tachihara saw her having a whispered conversation with the trunk, but seeing as he’d heard stories about her attachment to her car (which was now a truck), he didn’t think anything of it, instead electing to plop down next to Atsushi, whose injuries were rapidly healing.

“This was actually fun,” he said, “so thanks.”

“No problem,” Atsushi replied, smiling at him. 

Tachihara smiled back. “And hey, sorry for saying that stuff about Dazai. I’m sure he really does love you and Kyouka.”

Atsushi shrugged. “We love him, that’s for sure. You should focus on your brother, though. I think things will start turning out good on that level--my nose is even better than Lucy’s for telling when we’re being followed,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“Wait, followed?” asked Tachihara.

“Oh my fucking God,” said Akutagawa.

“I pointed it out to you, wise one,” Atsushi said.

“Don’t worry about it!” Lucy said, slamming her door cheerfully and pulling out. “Now please give me extremely explicitly detailed instructions to your apartment building.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the Toy Soldier followed Lucy to wilderness club. Yes, she knew about this when Tachihara asked if he was there. She got tired of being subtle and is pretty sure that her time leading the Circus is coming to an end anyway, and figured blatantly talking about it with Tachihara was a good way for him to figure it out. Sadly, Tachihara did not notice that his brother was there, because he's kind of an idiot.  
> The order in which the wilderness club members noticed him:  
> 1\. Atsushi, almost immediately. You can't fool this boy's nose  
> 2\. Akutagawa. Atsushi pointed him out to him when they started fighting  
> 3\. Lucy. She saw him when she leaned back, and immediately took her chance and ran with it  
> 4\. Kyouka. She, like Tachihara, noticed that Lucy was looking at something, and she, unlike Tachihara, did her best to figure out what that something was.
> 
> Also, yes, Lucy was talking to the Toy Soldier in the trunk at the end of the fic
> 
> (PS--if you want an explanation for the name I gave for Tachihara's brother, check out my fic 'moving along to the pulse of a heartbeat' in my Fukuzawa Yukichi's Home for Stray Dogs series. I posted it there a few days ago)


End file.
